


Brothers in Arms

by mynothingness



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Gen, M/M, Soft Nicky, dumbass bets as love, soft joe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:07:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29377551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynothingness/pseuds/mynothingness
Summary: Joe and Andy always had an easier relationship with Booker, right from the start. Well, ‘easier’ is the wrong word. Nothing was ever easy with Sebastien, when he finally came back to them after his family was gone, after his son had cursed him upon his deathbed for still being alive – he was too bitter, too fundamentally broken.But Andrea, still so raw and angry over losing Quynh, understood his impotent rage and his self-destructive urges most. And Joseph, well, he was always the one in the family who was easiest to get along with. He’d had that ability since childhood, to connect with people from different walks of life, a willingness to live and let live.When it came to Nicholas though, it was always more… complicated.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 32
Kudos: 231





	Brothers in Arms

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic has been bouncing around in my head for a while, ever since I read @Bookersebastien's wonderful post on Nicky and Booker's relationship on tumblr, and I found myself with a head full of somewhat angstier thoughts on their dynamic. This fic (that got a lot longer than expected!) explores different aspects of their relationship -- dumbass bets and silliness, love and caring, and the frustrations that arise because they're both such different people.  
> CW: There is some canon typical violence, and some discussion of children in peril, as well as HIV positive children, but nothing graphic. As always please do what you need to take care of yourself <3

Joe and Andy always had an easier relationship with Booker, right from the start. Well, ‘easier’ is the wrong word. Nothing was ever _easy_ with Sebastien, when he finally came back to them after his family was gone, after his son had cursed him upon his deathbed for still being alive – he was too bitter, too fundamentally broken. But Andrea, still so raw and angry over losing Quynh, understood his impotent rage and his self-destructive urges most. Their bond was forged in their shared misery, in the unspoken understanding that their pain had no logical ending.

Joseph, well, he was always the one in the family who was easiest to get along with. He’d had that ability since childhood, to connect with people from different walks of life, a willingness to live and let live. It allowed him to forge friendships everywhere he went, whether in the middle of a crowded marketplace, while haggling over the cost of a cut of meat, or in a tavern over a shared drink; an easy grin here, an exchange of a story or a joke there, and it was done.

In the end, it was that simple with Sebastien too; he was an unexacting companion when he was in a relaxed mood, and he and Joseph would argue over sport, bond over wine (though Joseph never had more than a glass or two), and if Joseph’s quick temper was triggered, they might end up in a shouting match in the kitchen, but everyone knew it would be forgotten the next morning over breakfast. When discussing it with Nico once, Joseph had compared it to his relationship with his eldest brother centuries before. 

When it came to Nicholas though, it was always more… complicated. Nico, so much quieter than Joseph and so _earnest_ in his desire to help, often ended up rubbing Sebastien the wrong way instead. He just wanted to be allowed to _be_ , to live out the rest of this endless, meaningless existence in his own miserable way. Joseph seemed to get that instinctively. And Andrea was the best drinking companion in the fucking world. But Nico, he hovered, and he worried, and he kept trying so damned hard. He insisted on waiting up and checking in on him on particularly bad nights, on washing his bedclothes and making him healthy breakfast the next morning, which only served to heighten that particularly potent blend of shame and utter self-loathing he felt on days like that. He didn’t _want_ to be cared for. He didn’t ask for it, and he didn’t deserve it, and only Nico didn’t seem to bloody well get it.

It had all come to a head one morning in the early 1920s. They were in some godforsaken safehouse in the midst of a Scandinavian winter, and Joe had awoken to the sound of a loud crash that had sent him running to the kitchen. Nicky had, of course, woken up long before him, so his singular thought at hearing the noise was, ‘Must make sure Nicky is okay’ because who else would be in the kitchen so early in the morning? (And also because that’s pretty much how Joe’s mind always worked.)

When he skidded into the kitchen, he stared in shock at the sight before him. Booker, still in his clothes from the previous night, reeking of drink, red in the face and breathing hard. The remains of what had obviously been breakfast lying scattered on the floor, amidst the destruction of crockery that lay in pieces, and violent splashes of coffee on the wall. And across the kitchen, Nicky, in his heavy, hand-knitted old sweater and equally thick sleep pants and socks, standing frozen, eyes wide, a single streak of blood trickling down one pale cheek.

Wordlessly, Nicky turned to gather the brush and pan, and dropped to his knees to start cleaning, and Booker let out a shuddering sigh. “Fuck,” he muttered, running a hand over his face. “Fuck fuck _fuck.”_

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened, so Joe said, in his hardest voice, “Go and walk it off, Booker.”

Booker nodded once, jaggedly, and went out the backdoor, his footsteps uneven. Joe didn’t, at that moment, particularly care about the condition the man was in; no doubt the fresh cold air of the morning would help clear his head. The person he cared about was still silently cleaning, the only indication that he was upset the slightest shake of the hand holding the brush.

Joe picked his way carefully across the debris, and kneeled down beside him, stilling his hands by taking the brush and pan away from him. “Nicolò,” he said, softly.

Nicky took a deep breath, and sat back on his heels. “He didn’t want to eat,” he said, emotionlessly.

“Sometimes you just need to let him be, my heart,” he murmured, gently wiping away the blood on his beloved’s cheek. The scratch caused, no doubt, by a broken piece of china, had long ago healed. “He’ll come searching for food when he’s hungry.”

The other man’s broad shoulders slumped. “I don’t know how to help him, Yusuf,” he admitted, quietly. “Everything I do seems to make it worse. I cannot seem to reach him, as I can Andromache. I…” He trailed off.

Joe’s heart had broken for him then, because he knew how much it mattered to Nicky to be able to care for the family that they still had left. Even when Andy was at her worst, she had allowed Nicky to hold her, to cook for her, to offer comfort in whichever way he knew. But Booker… “You cannot save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, Nico,” he said, taking those hands that worked so hard to care for all of them in his own. “You know that. He needs to find his own way.”

Nicky nodded, and laid his head on Joe’s shoulder for an instant, before straightening, and starting to clean again, and that was that.

But he stopped trying so hard, after that. He didn’t stop caring, that was not possible. Sebastien was family. But he tried not to push, not to overstep those prickly boundaries that Booker drew so clearly around himself.

Nearly a hundred years later, after Merrick, the night before they were to decide on Booker’s punishment, Nicky whispered, “Maybe if I kept trying, if I’d tried harder…” and Joe tightened his hold around him. “He never wanted to be helped, Nicky,” he said roughly, his memories of watching his love lying motionless in a pool of blood too recent, too raw. “You heard him. He wanted to die.”

Nicky just sighed shakily.

There was nothing more to be said.

*

Almost exactly a year after the incident with the breakfast, it so happened that Andy and Joe needed to be separated from Nicky and Booker during a mission in Russia. Nobody was happy about it, Andy because Joe fretted when forced apart from Nicky, and got terribly on her nerves, Booker because he didn’t know quite where he stood with Nicky, and Joe and Nicky, of course, because they were never happy to be apart, especially during dangerous missions.

It was particularly tough on Booker, because it reminded him too much of his first death in the harshest of winter in Russia, and it didn’t help that the tiny cabin they were laying low in until Andy sent them word had nothing by way of alcohol. By the third day in, Booker’s personal stash of booze was running low, and he was beyond jumpy and anxious.

When he walked into the small kitchenette one night and found Nicky crouched on the ground, knees drawn up to his chest, he couldn’t help snapping, “What are you doing?”

Those large green eyes glared at him. “Shhhhh.”

For an instant, he wondered if there was a threat he’d missed, and he ducked down, his eyes jerking towards the tiny window opposite, through which nothing but ice and snow was visible. “What…?”

Nicky raised one broad palm up. “You’ll scare them.”

Two pairs of dark beady eyes stared at him over twitching whiskers. Mice. Nicky was cradling two tiny white mice in the palm of his hand. Booker sank fully down to the cold, dusty floor, automatically taking one in his hand as Nicky handed it to him, saying, “Here, hold him, careful,” and watching, bemused, as the man fed the other one tiny droplets of milk with intense concentration. He would have said something sarcastic, should have really, except that Nicky, hunched over like that, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth with the effort, reminded him absurdly of his son Henri, at age 10, caring for his pet kitten.

So, instead, he stroked the little mouse in his hand, and meekly handed it over to Nicky when asked to. After that, it became routine for him to help out in caring for the two little mice. One night, in the middle of a particularly bad snowstorm outside, which almost definitely meant Andy and Joe would be delayed, Booker gave up on sleep to find Nicky had done the same, and was sitting by the little bed he’d created for the mice from an old box.

Booker cleared his throat. “So,” he said, “what are their names?”

Nicky shrugged. He looked as tired as Booker felt. “Haven’t thought of any.”

So he pointed at the larger one, with the goofy tuft of fur between its eyes. “Mathieu.”

Nicky narrowed his eyes at Booker, and pointed at the other. “Marcello.”

Later on, neither man could recall who exactly came up with the idea, but for the next several days, while the storm settled, and the clouds slowly cleared, Booker and Nicky were kept well occupied by a series of increasingly ridiculous mouse-races and their accompanying bets.

That’s how Joe found them, when he finally reached the following week – crouched over two rather overweight scampering mice, yelling in French and Italian respectively, Nicky having lost all his money (again) to a very smug Booker.

“Shit,” Andy said, coming up behind him. “This is going to be a problem.”

*

Every man has a weakness, and for Nicolò di Genova, as Andy, Quynh and Joe had discovered very early on, that weakness was gambling. It wasn’t even that he got desperately _addicted_ to it; it was more that he was so very, very _bad_ at it. Over the centuries, Andy had banned him from gaming hells, cockfights, racecourses and generally anyplace with an organized betting system that would fleece her immortal younger brother of his (their) money. Once Booker had been given the primer about keeping Nicky away from those places, however, in-house betting between the two was allowed, much to the amusement of Joe (who very kindly franked his love… up to a point) and Andy, who for reasons best known only to those two, was the subject of a large proportion of their bets.

There was no doubt that it eased the relationship between the two men, and it became a family ritual of sorts. A ritual that, somewhere along the line, became a circuitous way to show love. Nicky, held back from mothering _overtly,_ wasn’t above being sneaky and using the gambling to drag Booker out of the worst of his funks. There was the time, for instance, around the centenary of the passing of Jean-Pierre that the Frenchman just fell off the grid completely. They didn’t hear from him for weeks until Joe and Nicky tracked him down to Paris, and Nicky smoked him out with increasingly insulting messages on the superiority of Italian cheeses over French. It had ended with Andy being subjected to a series of taste tests that would have felled a lesser woman, and Nicky graciously accepting defeat and handing Booker his winnings over coffee and croissants.

If Booker was aware of the elaborate ruse, he didn’t say anything about it, pocketing his earnings with a grunt. But less than a decade later, when Nicky lost an entire leg in a landmine during the Korean War, Booker had turned up at their hideout with his bartered radio. The regrowing of limbs was always excruciatingly painful, and they had no access to painkillers at the time. Joe remembered feeling helpless, holding his love as he sweated and whimpered, and then Booker turned the battered radio on, reopening the bet he and Nicky apparently had going on the frequency with which popular songs played on different stations. It distracted Nicky from the pain long enough to fall into an uneasy doze, and Joe, for the first time, was actually _glad_ to have heard ‘The Tennessee Waltz’ play three times in the space of half an hour.

“Thanks Booker,” he said softly, after, as his own eyes slid shut in exhaustion.

Booker clicked off the radio, and hunkered down by their side, rifle in hand. “Get some rest. I’ll keep watch.”

*

The most fundamental conflict between Nicky and Booker, however, was the one that simmered the longest, erupting every now and again in small ways during discussions over missions – Nicky’s unrelenting idealism and drive to do good with their gift, set against Booker’s unrelenting pessimism and inability to even _see_ the good in their situation.

But it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that it finally blew up in their faces. They were in Bolivia, at the site of a massive collapse of a serpentine maze of tin mines, and had been helping get workers trapped in the ancient tunnels, which had no lighting or safety measures in place, since the early hours of the morning. They were able to go farther and deeper than the exhausted workers and other men and women who had come to help simply by virtue of being unable to suffocate to death – or rather, reviving if they did, and struggling on.

The daylight was rapidly fading when the news reached their ears – a group of young boys, all younger than age 14 were stuck in the deepest and narrowest of the tunnels. One of the fathers had gasped it out as they rescued him. It was an impossible task; that portion of the tunnels had been even more structurally unsound than others, and if the boys hadn’t died due to lack of air, they were most certainly too horrifically injured to survive the rescue, even if the Guard was able to get to them.

Standing there on the darkening, rocky hillside, covered in dust and filth, Andy had a rare moment of indecision. They were immortal, yes, but they were still human, and the multiple near-fatal injuries and deaths by suffocation they’d healed from had drained them. Even the parents of the children had given up hope, and the last of the workers were straggling away. It was up to them and only them whether to risk going in that deep again.

Nicky had been the one with no doubts, as always. “We have to at least try, Andy,” he said, his voice still hoarse from his last death. “We’re the only ones who can do it, we’re their only chance.”

That’s when Booker had finally exploded. “Their only chance for _what_ Nicky? We’ll get them out, we’ll keep living, we’ll heal, but what about them?” he said, his voice shaking as it rose. “Will it make you glad to see them die even as they curse you for still living? For escaping unscathed? Or will it make you happy to have ‘at least tried’ when they live out the rest of their lives as cripples, with their parents struggling to support them?” He stabbed a finger towards the retreating backs of the workers. “You heard what they said. Their parents don’t want that for them, they aren’t even asking for this.”

Nicky shook his head. “They don’t know what we can do. They don’t realize we can save them before it’s too late.” He looked at Andy again. “We’re wasting time. We have to go now.”

“What makes you so fucking sure we can?” Booker shouted, grabbing Nicky by the shoulder. “What makes you think that you can fix the world’s wrongs? We’re just freaks of nature, we’re…”

Nicky spun around, fury flashing in his eyes. “If there a chance that we can save even one of those children down there, I will take it. I am sorry for what happened to you, I am sorry we couldn’t save your son. But I will not let your self-pity stop us from putting this tiny bit of goodness in this world.”

“Enough!” Both men fell silent at the sound of Andy’s voice. “We go in once, and if the tunnels are unpassable, we return.”

It was the voice of Andromache, their commander, and when she spoke, they listened. But for the first time, when Andy, Nicky and Joe started forward, Booker turned and walked away. Andy watched him go, then wordlessly trudged towards the tunnels, and Joe and Nicky followed her, as they always would, for as long as she walked this earth.

*

Ten young boys were trapped under the bowels of the earth. They were able to save three. Only one made it through the night, and went on to live a long and normal life. They had no way of knowing this, until nearly 50 years later, they saw it on Copley’s board – a tiny newspaper clipping about the man who miraculously survived the Bolivian tin mine collapse as a boy, and went on to create one of the strongest unions to fight for miner safety in the country when he grew up.

*

The fallout from that night resulted in one of the longest hiatuses from missions they had taken in decades. For nearly six months, Nicky and Booker did not speak. Joe and Nicky spent that time on a farm outside of Morocco, and for the first time in the 150 plus years they had known him, Nicky did not seek out Booker and attempt to end the silence. Andy, Joe knew, was in touch with Booker, but though Joe missed his brother, his first loyalty always lay with Nicky. And so the impasse dragged on, until, as with all such things, Andy put her foot down, and landed up, Booker grumpily in tow, at their cottage one summer evening.

“There’s a mission,” she said, as Joe greeted them both with big, relieved hugs. “Where’s Nicky?”

Joe jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Out back, tending to the goats.” He grinned as Andy rolled her eyes. She, of course, knew exactly what was coming. “One of the does had a litter of kids, and he’s gotten… attached.”

“I’ll go get him,” Booker said, to Joe’s surprise, and he nodded, recognizing the olive branch for what it was.

When neither man reappeared for nearly half an hour, though, he and Andy went out to check on them, only to find both standing in front of an argan tree, looking up at the two goat kids perched on its branches, chewing at the leaves.

“What are you doing?” Andy said, slipping on her giant sunglasses against the slanting evening sunlight.

“I bet him the brown one could climb higher than the white,” Booker said, without turning around.

They all stood and watched in silence as the brown kid clambered effortlessly up yet another branch, while the white one hopped down and came over to nuzzle Nicky’s hand affectionately.

Booker whooped in victory, and Nicky turned to his husband, white kid now held in his arms. “Joe,” he said, looking contrite, “do we have 200 dirhams in the house?”

“I need a drink,” Andy muttered, as she turned and went back in. But Joe saw the smile on her face as she did, the one that mirrored his own as he put his arm around his love’s shoulders, and assured him that yes, _hayati,_ they had enough.

*

Of course, such a fundamental conflict wasn’t likely to die away completely, and it didn’t, but in the decades that followed, Booker seemed to come to accept, and even grudgingly appreciate Nicky’s intense drive to do good, only rarely ever challenging him on it, and never again mid-mission.

Once particular instance when it came up again stuck in Joe’s mind. It was in the 1990s, during one of those stretches when they had all separated. It had become increasingly frequent from the 80s onwards, as their ability to stay digitally connected even when physically apart became easier and easier. They no longer needed to stay or travel together as a dysfunctional family unit. More and more, they came together only for the period of the mission before scattering again – Booker and Andy going their lonely way, and Joe and Nicky, together as always, updating their skills and immersing themselves in academia or the arts or medicine, or for a long stretch in the 80s, throwing themselves into the fight against AIDS.

Ironically, it had happened because of Booker – because he had taken to all the newly evolving digital technologies so effortlessly, and become their online communication/security person – and yet, he was the one hit hardest by this change. He always came back from these periods alone looking haggard and worse for wear, eyes duller, mood darker, and Joe knew Nicky worried about him. They always made it a point to reach out to him, to invite him to wherever they were staying to spend some time with them, taking care not to push too hard. (Andy, who had spent nearly millennium with them, came and went as she pleased; she knew she always had a home with Joe and Nicky).

And so, he turned up on their doorstep one night in the 90s, carrying two six-packs of beer. Joe and Nicky were living in Virginia then, fostering HIV positive children. It was a cause very close to Nicky’s heart, ever since he’d come to know how these children struggled to find homes anywhere within the system. It was Booker who had made it possible for them, of course, creating perfect forgeries of Nicky and Andy’s marriage certificate, and their ‘history’ as foster parents of high-risk children (the only thing not forged was Nicky’s medical training). Andy had hung around long enough for the social worker’s perfunctory visit before disappearing; she had come across new technology that allowed investigation of deeper than ever before depths of the ocean, and was joining a team working on it off the coast of New England. It was a longshot, but it was also the first sliver of hope she’d had at finding Quynh in decades…

Booker had come over to watch the football World Cup with Joe, and had been coaxed into a staying until the finals. As he came in that night, he’d looked even more ragged than usual, and even Joe, not as prone to fretting over their brother as Nicky was, had been concerned. They settled on the couch, Joe explaining that Nicky was still upstairs with one of the kids, Ally, who had awful night terrors.

That’s when Booker said, quietly, “After all this time, he still believes, he still thinks we can make a difference. How? The world is going to shit, and still…” He shook his head, and tipped back the beer bottle, taking a long drink. “Do _you_ believe, Joe? Do you really think anything we’re doing is making this world a better place? Is it worth living for, living in pain for centuries like Andy?” _Like me?_ Joe heard the unspoken words, and he picked his own with care.

“No,” he said, honestly, and he realized he’d never said it out loud before. “Not always. I’m not even sure if we’ve always been on the right side of the wars we’ve fought in. And sometimes I feel like the people we help are a drop in the ocean. I don’t know if it makes any difference to humanity.” He thought of the children upstairs, born to suffering through no fault of their own. “It really doesn’t seem like it, at times.” He took a deep breath. “But Nicky does. He believes it’s our destiny, the reason we were created this way, the only reason for our continued existence. And as long as he believes, I will fight by his side. I will support him.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve met you guys.” Booker huffed a laugh. It was a brittle, sad sound. “Joe and Nicky against the world.”

Joe wanted to correct him, tell him no, it’s _all of us_ against the world, we’re family Booker, can’t you see? But Nicky had walked in then, looking sleep rumpled and tired, smiling as he dropped a hand on Booker’s shoulder in greeting. Booker had gripped Nicky’s arm in response, and the moment had passed, the tension seeping out of the room. “What match are you guys watching?”

“England vs. France,” Booker said. “If France wins, Italy is up next.” He looked up at Nicky and raised an eyebrow. “Care for a wager?”

“No.” Nicky smiled sweetly. “Who wants popcorn?”

As he went into the kitchen, Booker looked at Joe, pained. “Why the fuck won’t he bet on football?” he said. It was, he liked to say, one of the abiding sorrows of his life.

Joe chuckled. “There was an… incident, involving a bookmaker in England, shortly after we found you, and I think Andy banned it.” Booker rolled his eyes. “But now? Mainly because it pisses you off.”

He heard Nicky’s snort of laughter behind them, and then Joe was joining in, and Booker hid his grin behind his bottle of beer. “Assholes,” he muttered, and allowed himself to be pelted on the nose by perfectly placed kernels of popcorn, courtesy their team sniper.

*

Nearly 30 years later, after Merrick, Joe would think back on those times in anger and pain, realizing that Booker had specifically chosen the set up in South Sudan to trap them because he’d known that they would never say no to a chance to help children, and that Nicky would push Andy to do it, even if she was unsure. And that Andy almost never said no to Nicky when he did.

That brought with it sadness, because he also realized that Booker hadn’t fought Nicky on finding Nile for the same reason – he’d known there was no point when Nicky believed there was good to be done.

When the anger and hurt faded, that’s what remained – sadness. Because he’d known them so well, their brother. And they thought they’d known him too, known he was hurting, depressed and angry. Known it was getting worse with time, rather than better.

They just hadn’t realized how deep his despair had gone until it led him to betray them all.

*

Five months after they left Booker standing by the Thames, Joe and Nicky were in bed, Nicky sitting up and reading, while Joe lay with his head on his lap. The hand not holding the book was playing with Joe’s curls, and for the first time in a while, Joe was a literal puddle of relaxation.

“Joe,” Nicky said quietly, setting his book aside.

“Hmm?”

“I… have something to tell you.”

After all this time together, Joe could read Nicky’s tone effortlessly, and he felt some of the tension creep back into his shoulders. Still, he didn’t open his eyes or sit up. He was too darned comfortable. “What is it, my heart?”

Silence. Okay, now he was starting to get concerned. Nicky almost never beat around the bush. “Do you remember Ally? She was one of the kids we fostered in Virginia…”

That got Joe to turn over and open his eyes. “Yes, of course,” he said, blinking up at his husband’s face, painted in shadows in the lamplight.

“She survived, Joe, and she’s been looking for me. For Dr. Nicholas Smith.”

“Oh Nicky,” he said softly, taking that calloused hand in his. He knew it was bittersweet in the truest sense; to know she’d made it against all odds, and that she remembered Nicky after all this time, and to also know they could never actually meet her, because she would be expecting a greying man in his 60s, not the 30-something doctor she’d known in her childhood.

“Yeah.” Nicky bit his lip. “Booker… Booker came to know, and sent the information to me, via Copley.” He hesitated, and Joe just waited, still holding his hand, knowing what was to come. “Copley said I could write back to him directly if I wanted, that it was safe, encrypted.” Those wide eyes met Joe’s. “So I did, and… we exchanged a couple of messages.” He squeezed Joe’s hand tight. “I’m sorry, _amore mio._ I should have spoken to you all first. I will stop, if you and Andy feel I should.”

For a beat, Joe didn’t respond, all the pain and hurt rising to the surface again as it always did when he thought of Booker. Five months ago, at the pub, he hadn’t even wanted to consider Nicky’s suggestion of 20 years banishment for Booker. It had seemed too little in the heat of his anger. But now, now… “Are you going to write to Ally?” he asked, instead. “Does Booker have her contact information?”

“Yes, he does, but…” Nicky shook his head, fingers tightening again. “It is best not to. It’s enough to know she is alive and well.” Joe sat up then, and put his arms around Nicky, hearing all the unspoken sadness that lay behind the words. This was the curse of their lives, the inability to truly live in their time, to form meaningful connections outside of their tiny family. In his mind, he heard Booker’s words: _you and Nicky always had each other, right?_

For a moment, they just held each other. “I am not upset, _hayati_ ,” Joe said, finally, pulling away. “I… I am not ready yet, to talk to him, but if this is what you wish…” He shrugged. “I know Nile will be fine with it, for sure.” Nicky’s lips twitched into a tiny smile. “Andy, well, you should talk to her yourself.”

“I will.” He hesitated again. “It’s just… you know he never did well alone, as much as he kept to himself.”

“Yes.” Joe thought again of the times he’d come back to them looking so rough. “So what did he have to say?”

Nicky picked up his phone, and tapped on it, before passing it to his husband. Joe frowned at the screen, thinking Nicky had opened the wrong chat. “Nicky,” he said slowly, “these are pictures of geese.”

Specifically, geese flying in a V formation. He scrolled down to see another picture of a larger formation, identifiably taken outside their own bedroom window. He remembered Nicky taking pictures of the sunset the previous evening… or so he’d thought.

He looked up at Nicky with narrowed eyes, and saw that the other man’s smile had grown. “What is this?”

“This,” Nicky said, taking the phone back, “is me winning a bet against Booker for the first time in 40 years.” Joe groaned and he added, “I know, I know… but 40 _years_ , my love!”

Joe sighed. “And what did you win?”

Nicky scrolled down to a blurry image of a plate full of what looked like pasta, with greens on the side, with the caption “Happy?” and okay, Joe’s heart melted just a bit. “He had to have a proper dinner, and send me a picture of it,” Nicky said, looking down at the phone with a satisfied smirk.

Joe flopped down onto Nicky’s chest, realizing that he hadn’t lied when he told him he didn’t mind. In fact, he felt rather like a weight had lifted off his shoulders. “You’re both ridiculous,” he mumbled, and smiled as Nicky’s answering chuckle rumbled in his ear.

Perhaps things would work themselves out after all.

*

**Author's Note:**

> Hayati - My life  
> Amore mio - My love


End file.
